There are many limitations in the conventional data packet routing and switching technologies. One limitation is that, in many network platforms, a forwarding engine is programmed identically across all cards, and thus a scale of a box is limited to a table size of the single forwarding engine. The scale of the box can be even more limited in a standalone end of a row (EOR) switch because the box performs hierarchical routing, with Layer-2 MAC and Layer-3 host routes programmed identically on the line cards (LCs) and Layer-3 longest prefix match (LPM) routes programmed identically on the fabric modules (FMs). Another limitation is that, in network platforms, most forwarding tables are programmed symmetrically on all forwarding engines. Therefore, there is a need to scale the Layer-3 LPM routes to larger values.